The Music of Backyard Wrestling

Nothing like some T&A, greasy fried food, a little of the old ultra violence, and a healthy does of rock and roll to make a lunchtime excursion all the more worthwhile.

Such was the scene on a scorchingly hot Monday afternoon as I found myself entering the brand new Hooter's franchise in the touristy Fisherman's Wharf district of San Francisco. Now, Hooter's isn't normally the type of place I'd frequent for lunch (or dinner, for that matter), given that I don't cotton too much to fried foods, especially those of a meat variety (I'm an ichthyovolactovegetarian), nor am I terribly fond of light hearted T&A (hey, I like hot chicks as much as the next red blooded American boy, but there's just something not right about those neon orange hot shorts they make the girls wear at Hooters). But this was the venue that Eidos had chosen to display the still-in-development-but-slated-for-October-release of Backyard Wrestling.

The game, which takes the over-the-top world of pro wrestling and sticks it into the backyard, adding some Jackass inspired bouts of physical lunacy to the mix, is not only out to make the wrestling game genre more bloody, but is also set to vamp up the way gamers look at the music included in video games.

To date EA has been the leader in positioning up and coming bands in games (think OK Go in Madden 2003or Just Blaze on NBA Streets, followed closely by Midway, who tapped Vanessa Carlton, Cold, and Supernatural to write exclusive tracks for some of their upcoming games. But Eidos is about to bust the floodgates wide open with Backyard Wrestling.

So why should a gamer be excited about the Backyard Wrestling soundtrack? All one has to do is ask Kevin Gill, Senior Product Manager/Lead Designer/Soundtrack Supervisor on the game. "The reason we're excited about the soundtrack is simply put, we feel that other videogames are delivering you instrumental soundtracks or eight songs, twelve songs, sixteen songs," begins Gill. "We feel that having a 40-band soundtrack covering everything from Anthrax to Zugg Island. If you want to get more specific, in terms of today's popular bands, it's Sum 41, Andrew W.K., it's Bowling for Soup, it's American Hi-Fi.

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Lunch of champions!

If you want to go back to the early '90s kind of thrash metal stuff, it's got Biohazard, Sepultura. Today's more underground metal bands, bands that are on Ozzfest like Shadows Fall, as well as Chimaira. There's underground hip-hop artists like Motion Man and Kutmasta Kurt, whom you may have heard on the Linkin Park remix album. We've got those guys on here. We've got Kool Keith, too. I'm forgetting half the artists."

Whew! That's a lotta music, especially for a videogame. The goal behind having so much music on the soundtrack was a simple one. "Not everyone's going to like everything," remarks Gill. "But if out of 40 songs, there's gonna be eight or ten that you're really gonna dig."

The game, which was originally slated to be released in August, has now been pushed back until October. One of the reasons behind the delay was the creation of a custom hard drive for the soundtrack. "We want the player to have a fully customizable soundtrack experience," explains Gill. "On Playstation 2 that means if you hate Kool Keith or Shadows Fall, you can cross them off and you'll never have to hear them. That's at least some level of control for the player. For Xbox, of course, it's full on. You can do that, too, but you can also bring in your own soundtrack."

In terms of further customizing the soundtrack, will players be able to choose a shuffle option so that they can have the songs on the soundtrack constantly rotating in randomly selected order? "Yeah, if you want the eight songs that you like to constantly repeat, that's just a function of choosing your own custom soundtrack. We're also working toward standard randomization, which is how it is right now. It's your playlist, but it's always randomized. So it's probably more a matter of us adding a non-randomizer than taking away. But me, I'm a random fan. I have a 700 CD changer at home and I shuffle all the time. I want to hear Creedance Clearwater Revival into Slipknot and that can only happen at my house."

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Kevin Gill talks music.

As for the bands whose music is included on the soundtrack, according to Gill they are all eager for it to come out. "I've gotten to spend some time with Andrew W.K., Bowling For Soup, Sum 41 and some of the others and they're excited about the game and we're gonna try to do as much with those guys as we can."

Rumors abounded about original songs from some of the bands, including an Andrew W.K. penned and performed Backyard Wrestling theme song. Unfortunately, however, none of the artists were able to write original songs for the game. "We weren't able to [get any original songs] in this time frame. We spoke to Andrew W.K. and Insane Clown Posse; they were down [for doing it]. It just came down to a function of time. But, you know, sequel, for sure."

Original songs aside, 40 songs on the soundtrack is quite impressive. To date no other game I can think of has such an unwieldy collection of background music. "We feel like we have everything that someone could want," enthuses Gill. "If you're into really underground metal, there's gonna be a couple of bands for you. But we balance that out with Kool Keith and Insane Clown Posse. Whatever you're into, we hope that we've touched upon it. Some of them are tomorrow's bands today and some of them, like Sum 41, are today's bands now. We thought instead of getting caught up and blowing our whole budget just for an AC/DC song that we'd really partner up with people who were interested in working with us and they kind of got what the game was about and are excited about it."

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The many modes of BYW.

As for who actually decided which songs made the 40-track play list cut? Well, that would be Gill. I used my own personal tastes as a filter, but I also sat down with 100s of CDs that all of the labels sent me," he explains. "I don't know if you're familiar with Bowling For Soup, but they were a last minute addition simply because their manager sent me the CD, it was perfect, and I was like 'BOOM!, you're in the game.' Two songs, too. Very few artists have two songs in the game, but they do. It was a matter of sitting down and finding what worked."

As for any plans to compile a commercial release of the soundtrack? Well, those are still up in the air at this time. "We're not gonna do a commercial release for this," states Gill. The idea of a promo soundtrack CD isn't out of the question, though. "We feel that through everybody involved--the artists and the labels like Island, Roadrunner, ICP's label--there will be music related items to this available at stores. It's just whether they're a gift with purchase or what is still up in the air."